Warning: Do Not Play (2019)
October 15, 2022
Synopsis
Out of ideas and facing a deadline, horror director Mi-jung decides to track down an urban legend: a student film called “Warning” that was supposedly so scary that someone died at its first and only screening. Why is it so scary? Because the student didn’t actually make the film...A ghost did! Gasp!
So that description isn’t great, right? Like that’s just an incredibly silly pitch for a movie? But somehow, it actually works. And it had a very strange effect on me.
Confession time
I’m a bit of a scaredy-cat with horror movies despite watching them all the time, and plenty of movies have genuinely scared me or just creeped me out over the years. The Ring, The Grudge, The Babadook, and even movies I didn’t like, such as the Conjuring, really freaked me out and stayed with me for a long time. Yet I’ve watched these movies multiple times (Except the Conjuring, which sucks) and enjoy them and, more importantly, never had to look away or turn the movie off. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever turned a movie off because I was too scared. Until now.
Let me emphasize this: I don’t know why this movie freaked me out so badly. There’s nothing in this movie I haven’t seen before: cursed videos, spooky bathroom ghosts, ghosts invading your apartment, creepy found footage...all pretty standard horror fare. It’s competently made but there’s nothing incredible happening visually, dramatically, or writing-ly. I was even watching it in the daytime. The only real stand-out component is the sound design.But for some reason, the first major scene of Mi-jung’s apartment haunting just unsettled me so badly that I just said, “Nah. I’m done,” and turned it off.
A week or two later I went back and watched the whole thing and had no issues (nor did any of the spookiness stay with me like, say, The Ring), so I genuinely don’t know what happened. It seems to have just been a fluke, but since it did achieve something no other movie ever has I felt it only fair to bring it up.
Sound design, my beloved
Sound design is so often overlooked despite it being arguably the most important facet of horror cinema. Think of the Grudge rattle, or the muted void of Get Out’s Sunken Place. One sound effect that has stayed with me for years is from the unfortunate Evil Dead reboot (In fact, it’s one of only two things I even remember about it), where one of the girls is furiously cutting open her cheek; there was this amazing rusty-meaty-sawing sound that just sounded disgusting and I loved it. It’s a real bummer that so many movies only use sound effects for jump scares when they can be so much more.
The sound design for this movie is simply brilliant. You know how if you’re drinking from a can there’s an echoey little sound if you exhale? There’s a scene early on where Mi-jung is drinking a beer and for just a split second you can hear that little phwoo-exhalation. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that in a movie before! It’s just one of those tiny little ambient sounds in life that I don’t remember ever hearing in a film, and for the rest of its runtime I was constantly paying attention to the sound of this movie. Pins puncturing a cork board, the rasp of dirt underfoot, and every shaky, terrified breath are somehow simultaneously magnified and unintrusive...Except for the ghost’s noises. As someone with misophonia, the ghost is a goddamn auditory nightmare. She makes these awful wet, raspy, clicky whispers that weren’t scary to me, but were like nails on a chalkboard to me; I actually would cover my ears when she started up because the sound made my bones hurt.
Closing thoughts
Honestly, I don’t think this is a great movie, but it does have some very strong elements. It’s a bit of a mirror for horror fans, highlighting how voyeuristic horror cinema is. If you’re watching someone go through the worst day of their life as your entertainment, what is that if not an indulgence? It’s a luxury to go slumming through someone’s nightmare, isn’t it? But what if someone else’s pain can help you?
Both Mi-jung and Jae-hyun, the original director, talk about working through their personal traumas via horror movies. Mi-jung attempted suicide at some point and Jae-hyun was bullied so severely that it landed him in the hospital, and it’s implied that she and Jae-hyun both saw the Exorcist as they were recovering. They were both trapped in their own horror, used someone else’s to process what they’d been through, and then went on to make their own for their fellow voyeurs. This is hardly a new concept: it’s easy to find articles about horror movies helping some people’s anxiety levels. Hell, I’m one of those people. When Mi-jung and Jae-hyun have returned to their lives, it’s not enough to merely consume those stories anymore. They want to make them and share them (Mi-jung is *always* trying to capture spooky encounters with her phone). And that’s what the ghost is doing as well.
Soon-mi died making a movie. There was a fire on set and a malfunction turned her stage hanging into a real one. She just wants people to see it, to know her story, to know her name and know she suffered. Of course, being a vengeful ghost she does take a more hands-on approach to spreading fear, but we do see that she can be placated. I don’t think we get a real explanation as to why Mi-jung’s movie worked and Jae-hyun’s didn’t, but even with her success, Mi-jung still carries that trauma with her. The only difference is that it doesn’t destroy her the way it did Jae-hyun.
Content warnings
Self-harm and references to a suicide attempt.